Reports emerged overnight that Admiral will now start using Facebook information to profile new drivers for insurance quotes.

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Called ‘firstcarquote’, Admiral claims the service is “a new way of getting fair insurance for young drivers” and is aimed at new drivers.

When requesting a quote, the applicant has to give Admiral access to their Facebook account and an algorithm scans their recent information, typically posted in the last six months, for so-called personality signals.

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In some instances, though, older posts may be used to “understand you better.” Admiral explains: “We already know social media posts can tell us whether a person is a good or a bad credit risk and this is true for cars too.

“It's scientifically proven that some personalities are more likely to have an accident than others. But standard insurance questions don't tend to measure personality.

“At firstcarquote, we look at a driver's personality by analysing some of their Facebook data and if we see indicators that you will be a careful driver, we will give you a discount of between 5 and 15 percent off the price you would get on admiral.com.”

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According to The Guardian, Admiral will look for signs that applicants are conscientious and organised. This includes looking for “short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place.”

However, privacy advocates have slammed the plans.

Director Jim Killock from the Open Rights Group said: “We need to think about the wider consequences of allowing companies to make decisions that affect us financially or otherwise, based on what we have said on social media.

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“Such intrusive practices could see decisions being made against certain groups based on biases about race, gender, religion or sexuality – or because their posts in some way mark them as unconventional. Ultimately, this could change how people use social media, encouraging self-censorship in anticipation of future decisions.”

Furthermore, it appears Admiral’s scheme is in direct breach of Facebook’s Platform Policy. In section 3.15 of the policy, Facebook says: “Don't use data obtained from Facebook to make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan.”

In an official statement, a Facebook spokesperson said: “Protecting the privacy of the people on Facebook is of utmost importance to us. We have clear guidelines that prevent information being obtained from Facebook from being used to make decisions about eligibility.

“We have made sure anyone using this app is protected by our guidelines and that no Facebook user data is used to assess their eligibility. Facebook accounts will only be used for login and verification purposes.”

“Our understanding is that Admiral will then ask users who sign up to answer questions which will be used to assess their eligibility.”

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Facebook, typically, is highly self-regulating and encourages people to to report apps that breach the policy if they have concerns.

Admiral said that it will only use Facebook data to calculate driver safety and compares the type of information you share with it to thousands of other customers to make a “form of prediction” about the way you might drive.

It insists it doesn’t share the data and will only take a “static snapshot” of the social data during the quote process. The data is stored by Amazon Web Services, and at no point during the process does it have access to your Facebook password. The assessment remains private, and Facebook can’t see the result.

Admiral added that it could develop the scheme further to include other social networks and although the current scheme is designed to reward, not punish, people, future versions could “increase the price of insurance for some drivers.”